


Confessions With Your Doppelganger

by pherryt



Series: The McCoy Files [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Drinking, McCoy meets McCoy, Strong Language, Trek Fest, Trek Fest 2017, Trekfest, just a little bit, mentioned nyota/spock, mentioned/implied spirk, pre-McKirk, trekfest 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 11:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11230080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: What would it be like if the McCoy from one universe/dimension/alternate reality was able to interact with another McCoy?You'd think something like that would drive you insane, but Leonard's certain talking to his almost-double helps him from diving off the deep end.





	Confessions With Your Doppelganger

**Author's Note:**

> I randomly came up with this after I found out it was Bones' week over on [TrekFest 2017](http://outside-the-government.tumblr.com/post/161264134273/trek-fest-2017) (which i just found too) and I have no idea where the idea came from, but here you go.
> 
> Leonard is Karl Urbans version of McCoy while McCoy is the DeForest Kelly version. Just figured it would help keep them straight as they talk and stuff.
> 
> The picture started as a ballpoint pen piece after I wrote the story at work, then when I got home (after midnight) and transferred it to good paper. Today, I spent about 2 hours or so inking it in, and then I livestreamed the digital coloring - took nearly 4 hours! I mean, I chatted some on the stream, and we had a few hiccups along the way (this is the 3rd time I've attempted something like this) but it seemed a success after i got over my nervousness of being watched lol...
> 
> hope you enjoy this - i plan on more shorts to add to this series :D 
> 
> (Also, hint, there is no actual McKirk here, but I'm a McKirk shipper, just so you know)

Leonard supposed he should have reported it the first time it happened.

Certainly he should have done so the 2nd or 3rd time, when it finally dawned on him what was going on, even if he didn't understand how it was happening. Spock, of course, would do that half turn, that incline of his head with the raised brow, mutter, “Fascinating,” and promptly launch into a discourse of Quantum Theory or some shit.

Leonard didn’t care _how_ it happened, he only cared that it _had._

But there were always more pressing, more urgent matters to attend to, so that by the time things calmed down enough for him to consider reporting anything, much less _this,_ it didn't even cross his mind.

But now, the 30th, 40th, 50th time (whatever the hell it was. At this point, did it even really matter?) Leonard didn't think anything about kicking back in his quarters and discussing the day's events with his doppelganger in the mirror.

“-and then Jim volunteered me - _volunteered me!_ \- as the steadiest hands in the fleet. Which is how I wound up disarming a goddamn bomb.” Leonard swirled the bourbon around the bottom of his glass and took a swig as the man that was him and not him nodded in sympathy from whatever dimension or alternate reality he came from, a mint julep in his hand as the other McCoy’s drink of choice.

“I mean, sure, it's fucking great that the kid's got so much confidence in me but what the hell, right?”

“Thank god my Jim has the good sense to never pull something quite like that on me. But, I have to admit, he’s got a lot of faith in me as well, always expecting more outta me than I’ve been trained for,” McCoy commiserated. “He did once expect Spock and I to singlehandedly save a mining colony from the grief-stricken attacks of a sentient bo ulder.”

Leonard snorted. “A boulder? God, life never ceases to amaze me in its variety.”

“Yup. A living, breathing boulder. And then because it was alive and I’m a doctor, well, then _of course_ I can patch up its wounds. Like bricklayer was on my goddamn resume. At least he couldn't complain about my bedside manner being grating to the patient,” McCoy continued to rail on the other side of the mirror, waving his hands about. The seemingly haphazard movements that to anyone else would have them fearing the waste of the liquid in hand, but alternate dimension or not – McCoy and Leonard both had the steadiest hands in the fleet and they always had precise control of their hands.

Leonard almost snorted his bourbon – snorting seemed to be a hazard of talking with his counterpart, one that he didn’t mind. As long as he didn’t waste the bourbon, that was. “Well, at least there's that,” Leonard agreed dryly.

“So,” McCoy drained his mint julep and set about making another as he spoke, briefly disappearing from view. “How goes the love life? Any progress?”

“Fuck my life,” Leonard groaned, wiping a hand down his face. “I’m a goddamn, pathetic, hopeless moron. Why’d I have to go and fall in love with a playboy? Everybody fucking wants a piece of Jim. How can I even compete?”

“Hey, at least you still have a chance at Jim. By the time I met him, Spock was already in too deep.” McCoy smirked at his own thinly veiled innuendo, as Leonard snorted again.

Was it narcissistic to find yourself funny?

“Well, that’s definitely not a worry on this end. For someone who supposedly has no feelings, he's pretty hung up on Nyota,” Leonard drawled.

“Yes, well, that's not happening here,” McCoy sighed “Though now that I think on it, there might be some feelings on Nyota’s end. Then again, all the women – and no few men - on board the Enterprise seem to have a thing for Spock and/or the captain. And those two? Only have eyes for each other. Shoulda seen the time Jim had to – ah, never mind. Anyway, I ain't getting in the way of that. Spock keeps him stable and you know as well as I how important that is in a captain burdened with the _normal_ responsibilities of a captain on the edge of space, never mind all the extra shit Jim takes on.”

“Lord have mercy on the crew of a ship captained by someone without such support.” Leonard cast his eyes heavenward. Or, well, what passed for heavenward when you were stuck in a tin can in the vast depths of space.

“Amen to that,” McCoy raised his glass in a toast, which Leonard quickly returned. They both drank the remainder of their drinks in a companionable silence.

A red alert shrilled and McCoy sighed and set down his glass. “Same time tomorrow?”

“Sure, providing neither of our ships have been blown apart causing us all to once more go hurtling to our deaths.” Leonard drawled. “Stay safe.”

“You're a regular ray of sunshine,” McCoy noted.

“I'm you. So…” Leonard reminded the other him with a shrug.

McCoy stood up, straightening the lighter colored, short sleeved tunic he favored when on duty in sickbay. “Now I guess I better be going. After all, duty calls.”

Leonard’s intercom whistled and Jim’s voice echoed over it. “Good timing. Looks like I’m about to have company.”

With a nod, they both stepped out of view of the mirror, McCoy to deal with whatever emergency they’d run into this time, and Leonard to grab a second glass, pouring out two, generous portions of bourbon after calling out “Come” to the door. Jim Kirk waltzed in like he lived there, accepting his glass and settling into the seat Leonard has recently been using.

Fortified by his only outlet, Leonard also settled in, prepared to listen to whatever craziness Jim had to say today.

He had no idea how he had access to an alternate reality version of himself, but sometimes Leonard thought it was one of the only ways he had to keep himself sane, trapped out here where danger lurked around every corner.

Jim, of course, was the other thing that kept him sane.

Jim was also, of course, the reason he felt crazy half the time.

It didn’t make any sense, but there it was. This was Leonard McCoy’s - Chief Medical Surgeon of the USS Enterprise - life. He had to be insane to be gallivanting around the cosmos for the sake of one Jim Kirk.

There could be worse things, he supposed, as he listened to Jim with a fond scowl. And pessimistic as he could be, right now Leonard couldn’t think of anything worse than what had happened last year, and Jim had come back from that so, here was Leonard, making the most of the moments he had.

 

 


End file.
